THE WISDOM OF FOLLY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1064, 30 August 1930, Page 8

THE WISDOM OF FOLLY

THE QUIET CORNER.

(Written for THE SUN by the REV. CHARLES CHANDLER.) t T will be commonly observed that those people whom society acclaims as being its wise ones are often more bereft of wisdom than those whom she calls her fools. It was the poet Omar Khayyam ivho "left the wise to wrangle,” and in some corner of the hubbub couched, *made sport of that which made as much of him. Millions of volumes lie gathering dust and silver-fish on our library shelves, and yet we have not mastered the gentle art of being hind, or of getting on with one another. Those things which have been hidden from the wise and prudent have been revealed unto babes; hence the Divine injunction to “become as little children." Ivan the Fool, a character in one of Tolstoys inimitable short stories, displayed greater wisdom in the practical affairs of everyday life, than did either of his brothers, one of whom was a soldier, and the other a merchant. Ivan found true happiness in the simple things of nature. He had no appetite for pleasures that are as transient as moonbeams. The Preacher observed that as it happened to a fool, so it happened unto him, so why was he more wise? “The wisdom of the world is foolishness with God,” said St. Paul, and it might just as truthfully be said that what the world counts as folly can as easily be the wisdom of God. Most of the eternally great have first of all been laughed at. NEXT WEEK: CHALKING THE CUE.